


One Which Makes The Heart Run Over

by Myrrhee (Shadow_Logic)



Category: Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Eventual Romance, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Multi, Psychological Trauma, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-20 04:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14252928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_Logic/pseuds/Myrrhee
Summary: Why would a quiet, contemplative Mahican charge to his death for a "Yengeese" girl he has only seen from afar? When he hasn't, in fact, only seen her from afar. Six missing, canon compliant scenes that might have led to UncasAlice.





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

 

" _We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over._ " - The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

* * *

The harsh summer sun made Alice's head swim.

The invisible path in front of her melted from tall grass to thin trees and more thin trees, giving the impression of stretching as far as the eye could see. She had never missed the easy predictability of the streets in London so desperately: two streets down to Grosvenor Square took her to cousin Eugenia's, a coach ride of perhaps an hour's time, if that, took them down to Saint James' Park.

She'd loved the park so, rambled all through it like a child just a few months ago. Like a tiny wilderness, she'd thought, and had wondered aloud how much she'd love to know the real one.

The Alice she'd been then seemed so naïve now.

She'd wanted to be braver today: walk faster, last longer. But the wilderness stretched on and on, and her body, unable to know just what to prepare for, had simply given up on her, dragging her down almost as much as her mud-drenched skirts.

And the memories. God, the memories.

They'd struck less as the exhaustion took her over, but Alice knew they were lying in wait. Striking like a thunderbolt, they'd appear: the vivid moment when a screaming, half naked man took a still-breathing, struggling,  _living_  soldier by the hair and cut a crimson-red circle off his head. The din of their attackers, nearly animalistic, barely drowned out by the mighty bang of the muskets, filling the air with sulphurous, faintly pungent smoke…

She wished, for the hundredth time, that she had the courage to tell Cora about her near delirious recollections. But the complaints, for the hundredth and one time, sounded feeble in her own mind. Cora, who'd been on military campaigns, Cora, who'd field-trained under Mr. Phelps…Cora, who shuddered, but never looked away from the carnage. She'd look at her and see, again, a lost little girl who'd thought America was a slightly larger, slightly more populous garden.

The thought left Alice feeling almost as lonely as the distance of her companions currently did.

She and Cora had been close as girls – even with how much more serious, more practical Cora was. While Alice went off on her flights of fancy and read Gulliver's Tales and Robinson Crusoe, Cora, who'd once enjoyed them with her, seemed to find the world of fantasy stifling. Alice wondered now if that was what had taken her sister to follow Papa on campaigns, an ache to touch the real world behind the polished, tame little dollhouse that was Portman Square.

Alice had wanted that too. She'd simply expected the real world to be…a little softer.

She looked up. Dappled by the sun filtering through the endless trees and the summer heat, Cora's periwinkle blue riding habit, far ahead of her, looked as unfamiliar as the rest of the scenery. Duncan's red coat, a distance from her sister, looked much more vivid. Mr. Poe was invisible.

Dimly, Alice wondered if the red of their coats was what had made the soldier sitting ducks, if their three new companions dressed as they did for concealment. And then the red and the blue and the interminable ocean of green and brown seemed to blend like oil paint on an easel, and the ground rushed up at her.

Her arms caught her, but just barely. When she looked up, blur-Cora and blur-Duncan were gone.

For once, their disappearance didn't fill Alice with icy dread. Instead, she was full of the same sad, sobering resignation she'd felt the first time Cora had left with Papa: she had been ten, and as she'd slipped into her nightgown on the first night, she had realized the only person who she'd ever trusted with her nightmares was now hundreds of miles away. Alice would have to bear them alone, if they came on that night or any of the others. There was no "or".

A hand appeared at her elbow, and Alice, still on her knees, turned to look at the young Indian in the eye through the tendrils of hair that continued to escape her braid.

He didn't pull her up immediately. Instead, he waited for some sign on her part before guiding her up. Alice was sure he had more than enough strength in just his hand to set her on her feet without breaking into a sweat, so the gesture must have been for her benefit.

 _Probably believes I'm terrified of him_ , she thought, with a hint of regret.

The exhaustion and the pall of resigned sadness that seemed determined to trap her in its depths made her feet into leaden weights. But she started, slowly, to drag them forward, and her silent sentry matched her pace.

Alice turned to the man, who'd once again put his hands to his musket. "You're keeping an eye on me, aren't you?"

"Yes."

It depresses her, somewhat, that even this man who'd known her for less than three days had already discovered her weaknesses. "I'm sorry."

"What for, miss?"

"For slowing us down. For putting us all in danger last night, when I tried to crawl away." Another thing, one that had been slowly chafing at her thoughts, fell out of her lips before she could ponder on it: "For yelling at you about the horses. So…"  _So silly, so childish_.

There was a brief silence. Then: "You didn't know."

"No. I was…scared." In looking away in shame, Alice briefly lost track of her heavy feet and she stumbled again. The man, alert this time, stopped the fall by righting her with a sure grip on her shoulder.

"We can take a break-"

"No!" Her vehemence surprised even herself.

The man turned to look at her full in the face for the first time since the incident with the horses. His eyes were soft – Alice thought there was something about their color, like she wanted to trust him more every time she glanced at them. "I'm…tired. Of-of being a nuisance." The words trembled with a hint of tears; Alice longed to let them come, if only for the spent relief that always came when she was done, but after a moment she fought to hold them back.

The man looked at her pensively. Then he shifted the grip on his musket, holding it with one arm and leaning it against his shoulder; he offered her his free arm, easy as breathing. "Catch up faster."

Alice hardly needed to be told twice: she wrapped her arm securely into his.

Her weight seemed trifling to the sheer strength of him, and Alice felt tiny and fragile. But as they took their first step together, and Alice realized her leaden feet were much less of a bother this way, she felt reinvigorated instead.

And they took off.

The repetitive scenery seemed to blur, this time from their speed; Alice was soon out of breath again. She braced for another gentle suggestion to rest, but it never came, and the man's apparent faith in her urged her to withstand just a little longer. When she was truly spent, she squeezed his elbow, the one her hand was tucked into and said "stop, please", to which her companion slowed to a standstill.

Eager to continue, Alice took great gulping breaths and gathered the folds of her heavy skirts in her other hand – then a thought hit her, and she looked up at the man.

She hadn't asked for his name, after hours and hours of walking in his shadow, and Alice could curl up small for her rudeness. "What is your name?"

"Uncas."

"Pleased, Mr. Uncas. I'm Alice."

His face moved minutely, but Alice knew him too little to understand what it meant. Amusement? A sneer? "No Mr. Just Uncas, miss." His voice seemed faintly amused to her. Was it strange to be called 'mister' amongst these people? Duncan called the man called Magua simply Scout, now that she thought of it…

( _The memory of his cold eyes, the sight of the wildly screaming, half naked men, multiplying dizzyingly as they burst through the trees threatened to overcome her; she forced it down, fought; a stray thought bobbed to the surface of her mind: Duncan had been so harsh, too harsh to Magua, was that the reason why he wanted to kill them? But why Cora, then? Cora who was always so kind?_ )

…Alice breathed.

"Miss?"

"…I'm sorry." She didn't explain why she was sorry, and he didn't press her. The persistent thoughts relented after a moment, and Alice felt herself again.

She wondered if it would be too forward of her to suggest that Uncas also call her just Alice – it seemed an absurd bit of distance to maintain, to insist on formality from someone who'd already looked into the very center of her fragility. The right moment slipped through her fingers as she pondered, and Alice reluctantly opted not to recapture it. "Uncas." She smiled at how easily the name came to her lips: short, sonorous and memorable. "Uncas, let us advance."

They paused and started again several times. Upon each new break, Alice was relieved both by the progress they made with Uncas bearing part of her weight and the way Uncas didn't try to fuss over her. He was patient, never rushing her moments of rest and never seeming irked by having to help her.

They caught up to the group more quickly than Alice had anticipated. Cora, up ahead with Mr. Poe, was looking back as they approached with a concerned smile; Mr. Poe hardly spared them a glance, and the elder Indian, whose name she hardly dared pronounce for all the peculiar  _g_  sounds in it, was out of sight.

Duncan, however, was frowning ever so slightly as they approached. Alice couldn't begin to imagine what the matter was for a moment. Then she looked at the scene through Duncan's eyes, and remembered who the man on her arm was; or rather, what he was.

It had been a difficult discovery for Alice, how firmly entrenched the idea of whom to call "man" and whom to call "savage" was to the much-loved soldier who'd doggedly pursued Cora for years now. Alice noticed his harshness towards Magua: Duncan was a strict superior, that she knew, but there had been something that reeked of scorn to his manners. He'd also never once addressed Uncas so far, even after it'd been revealed that he spoke English well: she and Cora were wary, speaking when spoken to, but Duncan, with all his characteristic directness, always looked and directed his questions only to Mr. Poe.

Though it shamed her now, she could admit to herself that she'd come into these lands with all sorts of exotic ideas. But she always called the people here men ( _red_  men, oh she could cringe!), never savages or redskins - because Alice  _never_  forgot that she was, to polite society, something of a savage too.

She and Cora might have gone through the strictures of boarding school in England, through the same Classics and the same sums. They might have worn the same dresses, taken the same tea and wandered the same pretty ballrooms. But they were also the daughters of a Scot. Brave and honorable though Papa was, the Munros that came before her scraped out their living in the Highlands much closer to the present than polite society was inclined to forgive.

Edmund Munro came from the barren, empty hills where men wore kilts, where uprisings against the Crown were hatched. Papa might have chosen England over Bonnie Prince Charlie, but there were days when the red coat he wore so proudly seemed to not matter to those around him  _– like he's a child, playing pretend…or a feeble old man to be tolerated_ , Alice thought with dawning horror. His superiors always called him The Scotsman, instead of Colonel, when he wasn't present after all.

His Scottish roots ran deep. It showed in small details: how he'd let them fill their heads with thoughts of adventure, how they'd always had the freedom to speak their minds about everything. How they'd constantly, unwittingly broken the little taboos English society had erected for women.

And now, it seemed, it showed in how they embraced the wild people of the Americas. Fellow savages, after a fashion. Cora insisted on calling Mr. Poe…well, Mr. Poe; Alice, meanwhile, had had to run into Duncan's disapproving eyes to remember she was supposed to shun the man beside her.

"Alice." Duncan hurried to her side. "We were wondering where you'd gotten off to." He seemed intent to pretend there wasn't someone else with her. He came down the rise of the hill their companions had already scaled and stopped at Alice's other side, jutting out his elbow close to her free hand.

She was supposed to politely dismiss Uncas, she knew, now that her rightful protector was here.

"Gotta keep going. We'll make the fort only just before dawn tomorrow at this pace." Alice realized Mr. Poe was looking at the three of them. Something in his gaze reminded Alice of one of her harsher schoolteachers, waiting for her to choose the wrong answer. Cora glanced over her shoulder at the scene, her mouth half parted, as if ready to defuse the situation by choosing the outcome in Alice's stead.

Her nerves peaked. What happened next was neither rebellion nor conviction: taken back abruptly to examination days at boarding school, Alice simply blurted out an answer.

"It's alright Duncan." Everyone around her froze for a second, as if they'd been at a play and she'd said the wrong lines – which, Alice mused, she had. "You should stay at the front."

Duncan gave her a long, lingering look. There was something of shock in his eyes, and perhaps a little betrayal. Alice knew he was taking Cora's increasing intimacy with Mr. Poe quite hard, moreso after her sister had turned up in the woodsman's vicinity this morning – perhaps his wariness of Uncas was not as it had been with Magua. Perhaps he was simply experiencing the pain of being discretely shunted aside.

But the thought didn't change her mind. Alice met his gaze calmly, if not firmly, until Duncan turned away. His movement unfroze the scene, and she and Uncas started up the hill. By the time Duncan was only just getting a foothold on the final rise, Uncas had long since delivered her to the top.


	2. Between Scylla and Charybdis

* * *

**  
Ridge above George Lake - Nightfall**

* * *

As the deep blue shadows of dusk made the forest in front of them dark as the maw of a wolf, Uncas neither heard nor saw whoever was tracking them. He felt them.

The few times John Cameron had hunted with him, his father and his brother, their settler friend had always said it was "uncanny", how the three of them seemed to sense the animals and people around them. John had made it sound like they were magic, when the truth was simpler: they paid attention. The eyes of others, their breath or their step were as solid as the touch of a hand to a good trapper, who could listen with his skin if he needed to.

The prickling at his back made him reach for his musket on instinct. Only then did he remember his arm was woven into the younger Miss Munro's.

Her hair was the color little James Cameron's had been, and her hands occasionally felt just as small, just as soft in his arm. The memory of his small corpse, immobile beneath what was left of the cabin's eastern wall, smarted in Uncas' chest like a burn: it felt like failure and broken promises.

He had wondered if the memory of James was what kept taking him to Miss Munro's side, if he had decided she was now his ward and meant to protect her in James' memory – he turned to look, as if her face might hold the answer. Miss Munro panted slightly from the effort of a journey that would have seemed slow and indulgent to them, if they'd been alone. In the half darkness, her hair wasn't the only thing standing out: her faded pink dress with its heavy skirt, her pale face, which had gone rosy with sunburn at the cheeks and nose; all of her seemed brightly out of place here, in the middle of the wild frontier a few miles from Andia-ta-roc-te, the place that the British had renamed Lake George.

To his surprise, she turned to look at him as well, as if she'd felt his eyes.

"Is something the matter?" She asked the question gently, politely.

"We are being followed."

Her dark green eyes widened, and her voice was soft as a breath. "What shall we do?"

Uncas nodded. "I'll make sure we stay ahead of them."

A line of worry appeared between Miss Munro's eyes. "Oh." She began to unwind her arm from his. The haunted look that had stayed away from her for most of the daylight hours did not immediately return, but Uncas could see its threats in the way her entire face seemed to grow slack and numb.

The soldier who escorted them took his time to appear, but appear he did, his red coat anticipating his arrival by several steps. There was a brief moment of tension as Miss Munro looked vaguely ashamed and the man hesitant, but the soldier managed to put on a tight smile, and the girl cautiously accepted his arm in response. As she did, she gave Uncas a final, questioning glance, one he did not try to figure out.

Uncas grasped his musket and lingered at the back of the group before breaking left in search of the sound. Up ahead, his brother and their father would likely notice and know there was something to be wary of.

Thoughts of their father made Chingachgook's words of the afternoon return to him, suggestive as fireflies in the dark grass:  _do not try to understand them, they are a breed apart and make no sense_. He had meant the advice for Nathaniel, who would always be torn between the white men and their own world, but Uncas wondered now if he might not be wise to listen to it himself. He had never before questioned his compassion: Uncas sat with the broken and the hurt because he could, because it was honorable and correct – but he had never before met the likes of Alice Munro, bright and candid and brittle as frost.

She said 'thank you' too much, as did all the British, but there was something alive in her eyes as she said it, and it made Uncas wonder if she perhaps  _did_  mean her words. Her eyes were dark, so dark that he thought them black, but he'd seen more and more green to them during the day, and he had decided it was a green like the shadows of the forest at twilight.

She had also surprised him, choosing to battle her untrained body's exhaustion, then choosing him over their soldier escort. That had indeed made no sense, but it was a kind of nonsense Uncas had never expected.

Uncas had no reason to be spending so much of his attention gaining an understanding of her inner world. But he had a vague impression, murky as the bottom of a lake when its sand floor had been upset, that her inner world had a meaning, and one he might care to have clarity about.

He put thoughts of Alice Munro forcibly out of mind and doubled back soundlessly over their path.

* * *

The Ottawa with their Couriers des bois at their backs, the French Army ahead. Were he not up to his chin in water, Uncas would spare a thought for how the war they'd been avoiding finally had them in her fiery arms.

The slash he'd gotten helping commandeer the canoe they were pulling forward spread dull, pulsing pain up his middle; it made Uncas feel awake. The small hand he knew to be Alice's gripped the canoe with white-knuckled fervor a stretch of his arm away, but there was no guarantee that she wouldn't start or otherwise unbalance the canoe if he tried to soothe her with touch now.

His feet and his father's touched shallower ground a moment later, and there was a mad scramble to disembark and reach the shore in the very shadow of fort William Henry. Now came the second, more dangerous part of their trek: reaching the gate without falling to the muskets of their own people.

As they hurried out of the water, Uncas was grateful for the women's bright, impractical dresses and their surly bodyguard's red coat for the first time in hours. Ahead of him, he saw the elder Miss Munro surge forward, almost as if she'd tripped, but he understood as soon as her forward lunge earned her Nathaniel's arm.

"They won't shoot you if they understand we're together!" Her voice was barely audible over the thunder and crack of artillery, but her blush was clear. Nathaniel accepted the plan without protest. Their father hurried to the front of their small group, musket in one hand and open, unarmed palm in the other; the sentries would take him for the Mohawk guide of a couple of settlers.

Uncas later wondered if he should have been less surprised when two small, cold hands fastened themselves around his forearm. "Cora's right!" And without further discussion, the small and pale Alice Munro was pulling him forward with all the strength that remained in her thin arms.

As they found the lit path towards the gate, the gash at his side dutifully reminded him of the danger they were in, Munro sisters or not. But he was surprised of the way Alice stood straight, if shaking, at his side, and wondered if he'd been too hasty in thinking her brittle.


	3. Sword of Damocles

* * *

**Fort William Henry - Three days 'till surrender**

* * *

"Don't be 'fraid to call on me for anything you might need."

"Thank you, Mrs. McCann."

From behind the changing screen in a corner of the room, Alice imagined the kindly older woman had flashed them a broad, maternal smile before finally closing the door.

Alice stepped out from behind the changing screen in her new white dress. Cora had already changed into a white blouse and a striped skirt, and Alice was shocked to discover her tying up her hair.

"Are you going out?"

"Yes. I'm afraid I'll be tossing and turning uselessly if I try to sleep. Better to go put myself to good use in the surgery than slowly losing my sanity here."

"I shall…rest." Alice went to sit on the side of the bed, following Cora's pale hands as they sifted through her dark curls. More than exhaustion, Alice felt eager to put down her head and sleep to forget all that had happened, if only for a few hours.

Cora must have sensed her mood, because she smiled indulgently. "Of course,  _barra_." The old childhood nickname surprised Alice somewhat – it was a Scottish expression for 'child'. Hearing it here, so far from the places she'd called home, felt like finding a much beloved dress, only now it was too small to fit her. Nevertheless, she managed a smile for Cora. Her sister's eyes lingered on her, searching, and Alice wondered at what Cora believed she could see before her older sister's indulgent grin turned longer, sadder, and she finally slipped out the door.

Alone, the silence felt strangely pregnant to Alice, like the quiet before the start of an opera. She knew, in a sudden flash of enlightenment, that the scenes it promised her would be full of the sights and sounds of war: a woman, barely older than Cora, thrown on the ground with a scarlet red hole in her back. The tiny legs of a child, sticking out from behind a wall too large and heavy for such a small form.

 _I shall go to sleep, so that they will not find me_. That the thought she'd had often during Cora's memorable first campaign should serve her again here, with her sister a ten minute's scramble away at most, made Alice want to laugh and cry by turns.

It seemed ridiculous to be burrowing under blankets at the height of summer, but Alice quickly realized she didn't mind, not when the weight of them imbued her with a sense of safety. The running and walking and standing of the past days, along with the notion that all her loved ones were, at least for now, safe and accounted for, finally allowed her to close her eyes and let go.

* * *

Alice woke in the dark. For a moment she listened for breaths, the occasional crackling of a fire burning too low and the cracks and peeps of the wild, before remembering she was indoors and alone. The candles in their chamber must have burned low.

Alice clutched the blankets closer. The weight of the bedclothes was suddenly too meager in face of the cold, crippling sense of despair that flooded her chest. She was momentarily torn between bolting from the chamber with its oppressive darkness, a harbinger of nightmares, and closing her eyes against it until sleep reclaimed her.

But to close her eyes meant to face the darkness head on. Alice hesitated for all of a second before throwing the blankets off her body, barely pausing to slip her shoes onto her feet and rushing to fight the door's lock.

Out in the halls the distant rumble of movement and the din of many voices eased her heart somewhat. Cora would be at the surgery, Mrs. McCann would be perhaps at laundry duty, and her father would be in the very midst of things, issuing orders and waiting for reinforcements. The surgery might need her, even if only to bind wounds and cut new bandages, but braving the noise and chaos of it now, with the darkness that haunted her so close still, seemed near insurmountable.

Not yet, then. She would reconnoiter until she was master enough of her emotions to be useful – even if that meant walking and walking until her shoes had no soles.

* * *

Alice lost herself for what felt like a long time up and down the many corridors of fort William Henry. The occasional sight of people, sometimes bearing the red coat of the British army, sometimes dressed in ordinary trousers and shirts, made her shy, but most of them simply nodded their heads at her, and Alice would respond in kind before she wandered on.

At length, one turn led her a short walk away from the broad gate that opened into the fort's parade. Alice paused, staring at the natural light pouring into the fort corridors from outside, and thought she could see a sliver of blue skies. It was a beautiful day outside, but the thought brought her no cheer.

As she lingered around the corner, a tall figure with soundless steps, flanked by a smaller one in a tricorn hat, blotted out the sunlight for an instant. They were admitted by the sentries and started down the hall towards her. When they turned the corner, light no longer to their backs, Alice let out a breath she had not known she was holding, and a knot she'd been barely aware of, situated somewhere above her stomach, loosened and smoothed away.

It was Uncas.

He paused at the sight of her, his dark eyes on hers, and he blinked slowly and long in a gesture that clearly meant hello; Alice smiled. The man at his side, dressed in a light tan, gunpowder stained coat, who'd apparently been talking to Uncas, realized his companion's attention had shifted and turned to look. He seemed momentarily taken aback at the sight of her, but quickly reached for his hat, revealing cornsilk blond hair beneath.

"Miss Munro." Something in her face must have betrayed surprise, because the man allowed himself a brief chuckle. "I was on the wall when you arrived. Uncas and Nathaniel are old friends of mine." He jerked his head forward in lieu of a proper bow. "Captain Jack Winthrop, Miss. At your service."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance." There was something open and guileless about Captain Winthrop that made Alice immediately feel more at ease.

Captain Winthrop plopped his hat back onto his head and reached behind to tap Uncas' chest as if it were a door. "We were headed for the surgery, Miss. Your sister patched up my friend well, but he's gone and done too much, needs a change of bandages. And I might need some attention too." He moved a finger towards his right arm, where a sliver of the tan coat was opened in a straight, bloodied line. "Can't ever be too careful of the arms when they hold a musket."

Alice smiled yet again. She had a sudden, intense desire to keep close to them for now, the Captain's easy manners and Uncas' solid presence, which had the reassuring effect she'd sought without success from her blankets earlier. In such company, she almost felt equal to facing the surgery, and that finally made up her mind. "May I accompany you?"

Uncas' eyes turned curious. "You work in the surgery too?"

Alice could feel the color rushing to her face at the innocent question. "Not since arrived, but I will. I'd be pleased if you'd let me escort you." She looked at Uncas' face intently. There was soft content in the looseness of his jaw, but he said nothing - it was Captain Winthrop who said that the pleasure was all theirs.

* * *

The surgery was unusually silent when they arrived. Mr. Phelps was settled outside the area where treatment occurred, reading a book with his back against the wall.

"Alice!" Mr. Phelps unfolded himself from the stool he sat in and got to his feet, putting a hand paternally on her head. "Good ta see you here, lass." He looked at the two men trailing behind her and immediately withdrew his hand, slipping into his surgeon persona. He gestured them through the door and immediately began assessing his patients.

"My friend needs a bandage change, and I'd like to know if my arm might fall off."

"Let us hope not. Through here. Would you take care of the bandage while I see to the Captain, Alice?" Mr. Phelps hardly waited for her to answer as he strode back inside.

Alice slipped through the door. In the inadequate light of the surgery, she could see Uncas had sat up on one of the tables where the patients were laid out. She went to his side, managing a small smile. "I shall see to you." His eyes were more curious than surprised; after a pause that might have been hesitation, Uncas lifted the bottom of his shirt up to his ribs.

Alice wondered for a moment why he looked so naked. Then she realized that what she had taken for ordinary pants were instead a curiously cut garment that ended at the middle of his thigh, with a second garment secured around his waist with a narrow leather tie. It took her a moment to slip into the calm, collected mindset of nursing, surprised at how he submitted his nakedness to her care.  _He trusts me because Mr. Phelps seems to_ , she mused,  _not because anything about me reassures him_. It was a sad thought, but one that tempered her nerves, and Alice got to work.

She found Cora's precise stitches beneath the soiled bandaging, which she set aside to be discarded as she cut cloth for fresh dressing. She briefly wondered if her small arms could reach all the way around Uncas, with how large he seemed, but she managed to do it without dropping the ends, and felt the pleasant warmth of satisfaction once she had tied the bandages securely.

"There." As she stepped back, she realized Uncas was staring at her.

"Thank you." He looked away, smoothing his hand over the newly dressed wound and lowering his shirt over it once more.

"Is the pressure alright?"

"Yes." Then Uncas' eyes returned to her, gently probing.

 _He wants to know if I'm alright_ , Alice realized. He was gazing at her like he had in the woods as they strove to catch up to the group, waiting for her signal to resume their walk. "The people here have made sure Cora and I are surrounded by comforts."

"Safest for you here."

Alice hid a pained smile. Safest, yes. While the fort still stood.

The night before, Cora had known their father would hardly discuss pressing matters in front of them. She had lingered outside his office after they'd been sent into the care of Mrs. McCann, eager to know the truth. Alice could hardly have walked away from her sister as she stood in the shadows, though Cora had implied she should – they had, in consequence, both heard.

Three days, Duncan had said. Three days and the cannon blasts would blow this place apart, if no reinforcements were to be had from the fort down yonder. It seemed almost unreal that a building so solid could someday not exist anymore, but the impermanence of homes and people seemed a natural law in the frontier, one that Alice was slowly beginning to accept.

Alice wanted to ask Uncas how safe they would all be once it fell. She wanted to ask him what would happen to him, to herself and her family, to the friendly Captain Winthrop once they were overrun by the French. Instead, she heard herself asking: "What shall you and your family do now?"

If he was surprised that she'd gained that bit of intelligence, that they were two brothers with their father, Uncas didn't show it. "Help out here. Then we move west. Trap for the fall, pass winter in Ohio."

Some of the warmth of activity and good company seemed to fade at his words. She appreciated their three rescuers, perhaps even thought them her friends, and she'd be sad to see them go. But, she admitted to herself, she'd be sadder yet if Uncas and his family stayed and died.

Uncas got off the table abruptly, and Alice turned to see that Captain Winthrop had been seen to. He ambled over to both of them with a smile. "Thank you kindly, Miss Munro."

"On the contrary, Captain. Thank you." She hardly understood why she had thanked him, but an irrational part of her told her she'd gotten to say her goodbyes ( _what good-bye? To whom?_ ). Captain Winthrop seemed momentarily surprised at the warmth of her voice.

She toyed with the idea of asking them what they'd do now. Ask if she could perhaps go with them, if their chosen tasks did not include shooting enemies from the ramparts. She might even be able to do it, Alice realized. What was it to the people of these wild, free lands if she walk for a while with two men, unescorted?

But she couldn't find the strength to do it.

Uncas, musket now in hand, went all the way around the table to reach the door, which was proper, as he would have had to brush against her had he not gone around. From the threshold, he nodded. "Thank you." Then he turned and walked through the door, which prompted Captain Winthrop to jerk his head at her with a smile and follow suit. And then they were gone.

Alice stared at the empty doorway for a moment, anticipating the dark tendrils that would reach out to pull her heart back into the darkness at the loss of her steady companion and the air of peace that seemed to cling to him. But the moment never came. Instead, a faint pain gripped at her heart, a quiet wistfulness that needled at her without destroying her peace. It was a relief from the enveloping sadness, and Alice felt braver knowing she could function despite it.

She turned impulsively towards the surgeon "May I stay and help, Mr. Phelps?"

"It's been a quiet day. But you could perhaps make me more dressing. About this wide should be good for anything." Mr. Phelps held his thumb and forefinger far apart.

Yes, she thought. With an enthusiastic nod, Alice found a short knife and a bundle of cloths on the set of shelves against the wall. Bringing the bundle to the table Uncas had vacated, she spread the cloth and sank into the bracingly repetitive task of cutting it into strips of the appropriate length.

Mr. Phelps sighed deeply from his stool. "Strange, that Mohawk."

"Mahican." Alice didn't look up from her work as she answered.

"Alright, Mahican. When your sister sewed him up, he looked at the wall fit to open a hole in it. T'was like he wasn't there. But he didn't take his eyes off you for a moment."

Alice thought she detected something shrewd in the surgeon's voice, even if his eyes hadn't strayed from his book as he spoke. She wondered if it might ease his mind to know he and his family would move out soon, and they'd never see hide nor hair of them ever again. But she frowned deliberately and kept her silence instead.

Had she not spent one and four fifths of a day in his company, the surgeon's comments might have gone to Alice's head in a flash of something fierce and confusing. But she knew enough of Uncas now to understand his eyes spoke a complex language of their own, and Mr. Phelps could hardly be expected to decipher it.

Neither could she, of course. But she toyed with a wordless notion of being something, some _one_  instead of nothing to the young Mahican with the sad eyes, and it felt like the warm, timid touch of morning sunlight.


	4. The Labyrinth of Crete

**Fort William Henry - One day 'till surrender**

* * *

Uncas realized something was going to happen that night, almost at the same time he realized he was not going to find Nathaniel.

He walked one last loop around the dark parade, more out of a trapper's compulsion to never give up on a quarry without a fight than out of any hope of finding his brother. Nathaniel clearly didn't want to be found - his choice to exclude Uncas meant that whatever Nathaniel was doing was incalculably dangerous, outrageously stupid, or both.

True to his suspicions, the final loop brought him no hint of white buckskins or long brown hair, though it did manage to throw him into the path of Jack Winthrop, walking with his head down along the rampart's gloom.

Jack had never looked as tired as he did right then, with the firelight drawing shadows on the angles of his face. "Hallo there, Uncas." Jack gave him a smile so stiff and stretched, it reminded Uncas of a bowstring, drawn tight by a strained hand.

"Jack."

Jack looked at him hard for a moment, his rigid smile grim. He seemed to want to say something. No…he seemed to be caught between wanting to say something and not saying anything at all.

"Get out of here." The words came out in an exhausted sigh, and Uncas stared at him in confusion. "As soon as you can, you, your brother, Chingachgook…get far away from here. From the war." There was something defeated in the way Jack's shoulders hunched.

"We mean to."

"I know." A thick cloud of unspoken words hung between them, but his settler friend seemed unwilling to dispel it. "Go far, far away. Fast. Show these tomato-backs why they call you  _le cerf agile_." Jack lowered his head and reclined his arms on his musket, as if the weight of the world had suddenly been dropped upon him. "If Nathaniel keeps saying he wants to stay, knock him over the head and throw him over your shoulder." He chuckled, as if he were imagining Nathaniel dangling off Uncas like a rolled up blanket. Then a grave air seemed to settle over the captain: with a decisive jerk, Jack straightened, adjusted his musket on his shoulder and started off to some place behind Uncas, clasping his friend's forearm briefly as he passed.

A wordless farewell.

Uncas looked around the parade. There was a strange levity to the place that night, discordant with the undercurrent of tension he sensed and Jack had as good as told him about. Groups of settlers, soldiers and Mohawks alike clustered around merrily crackling fires, talking, smoking and even laughing. Someone was playing a bittersweet melody on a violin, and a few couples spun in time to its whine.

Uncas turned away from the scene and re-entered the fort, trying not to think about how many of the revelers would not live to see the end of the siege.

* * *

Uncas wandered through the corridors for a long time after that.

Fort William Henry felt small and suffocating that night, as if the walls were inching closer every time he looked away from them. Unable to run out into the bracing solitude of trees and darkness, Uncas tried to widen the constricting little fortress with his footsteps.

He passed the surgery at some point, even glancing inside before he could help himself, but the small room was full of the sounds and smells of death, of silhouettes he didn't recognize, and he walked past the door without anyone in the surgery glancing his way.

He walked past the corridor of what he believed was the war room, judging by the alert, angry-eyed sentries at the door and the vociferations of Munro coming down the hall.

At length, Uncas turned into a corridor resonant with emptiness. A single door, flanked by a sentry in full uniform, stood near the end of it, but nothing more.

Nothing more - except for a quaking white bundle, huddled in the deep shadows between two circles of candlelight a few paces away from the sentry. As he looked, the bundle let out a shuddering gasp, and Uncas realized he was looking at Alice Munro.

Uncas walked down into the corridor with caution, taking care to make his feet heavy. Surprisingly, Alice heard him before the sentry did: the dark hid her face, but a rustle of fabric told him she had moved, and Uncas felt the light prickle of eyes on him soon after. But she didn't say his name, didn't move; only her breath broke the silence, harsh and rapid.

Harsh and rapid as it had been on another night, as sweltering and hopeless as this one, an Ottawa war party closing in on them instead wooden walls.

Filled with quiet resolve, the same one that had led him and his family to jump to the defense of two unarmed sisters and a badly outnumbered British major on a deserted road without discussion, Uncas stepped lightly towards Alice. He crouched at the very edge of the circle drawn by the candlelight, immediately beside the shadows Alice had chosen to hide in. Even though that put him less than an arm's stretch away from her heaving form, he did not try to touch her.

There was a story Chingachgook liked to tell them about the moment when, according to him, he had known who his sons would grow up to be. It had happened the day their father, with Nathaniel of ten and he of eight, had gone to test the waters of the Moravian missionary school established on Mahican lands. They'd crept into the one room schoolhouse behind their father, hesitant, until a mad flapping of wings had commanded the boys' attention.

A small, mud-brown bird – a mourning dove - had found its way inside and seemed unable to find the way back out. It flapped desperately, trying to take flight and escape, but unable to understand it was simply getting itself further trapped beneath the long desk-benches. The story went that he and Nathaniel had followed the dove, that Nathaniel had tried to chase it towards the closest open window - only to have the panicked bird nearly careen into a wall. His brother, upset, had walked away from the rescue then, leaving the matter to Uncas.

A rare smile always appeared on Chingachgook's face when he came to that part.  _My white son is not without compassion, but he sensed his hands were too heavy for such a delicate creature._ He'd usually look at Nathaniel then, and his brother would always nod, self-deprecating. Then he'd turn to Uncas. _My younger son was not afraid of the bird's weakness as much as he was afraid of the bird coming to harm – and that is why it was he who caught it._

Uncas couldn't remember if he'd corralled the dove, or if he'd snatched it out of whatever corner of the schoolhouse it had gotten stuck in. He only remembered how fragile its little body felt, unmoving in his cupped hands, and the swell of joy as the bird leaped out of his open palms when Uncas finally brought it outside. He remembered the brown blur arching into the open skies with a chortle that sounded like bliss.

Alice Munro, pulsing with fear in her hiding place, seemed to him just as small and fragile.

He stayed as close as he could to the edge of the bright circle, respectful of her shadows and her intuitive attempts to master her panic.

A small eternity later, Alice's breaths lengthened. Her arms released her knees, which straightened out in a whisper of skirts, as if her vicelike hold had been the only thing holding the nerveless limbs to her chest.

"Uncas..."

"Miss."

Alice shifted. Then a long, slow breath escaped her barely parted lips, as if she were exhaling the remaining terror out of her body. "I…"

Her polite justification for the episode never came. Uncas wondered if she was discovering that emotions were sometimes their own explanation.

Uncas stretched his neck to look at the guard over Alice's head. The man hadn't moved a fraction, as if he were one of those wooden torsos that the high-end seamstress' shop in Albany used to display its wares. He'd noticed British sentries were like that, always pretending they weren't humans with eyes or tongues. It had always seemed nonsensical to Uncas: now, however, he found comfort in the illusion of privacy it granted them.

Uncas rose to his feet, holding his hand out past the circle of candlelight. A cold hand grasped four of his fingers, and he slowly pulled Alice to her feet, away from the shadows.

Alice retracted her hand from his gently once her feet were safely under her. She folded her arms over each other, as if she were cold, and seemed to follow the faded flower pattern of her skirt with her eyes. "I'm afraid to go back inside." Her voice, barely above a whisper, was only tired. Either she was too spent to bother with shame, or she had resigned herself to it.

"Cora won't come until much later. Papa is…" Alice gathered her arms closer around her. "The room feels so small, sometimes."

 _I understand_. "Walk?"

A pregnant pause followed his suggestion. "…where to?"

Uncas pondered the question for a moment. "You can tell me when we get there." When he offered her his arm, Alice tucked her cold hands into his elbow without the slightest hint of mistrust.

* * *

They avoided the crowded parade and the surgery, keeping to the fort's inner corridors at a leisurely pace. The few people who crossed their path nodded to Alice respectfully, sometimes even sparing a glance for Uncas, probably assuming he was helpfully escorting Miss Munro somewhere instead of wandering Fort William Henry with her.

They'd walked past the small door that lead to the barracks of the Mohawk scouts when a small tug made Uncas slow to a stop.

"This corridor seems so quiet." Alice unwound her arm from his and took a few steps towards the opposite wall. She turned, resting her back tiredly against it and cradling her arms. "I'd never thought I'd miss silence."

Uncas reclined on the opposite wall. He could make out the distant rumble of conversation, footsteps, and the occasional strain of the violin when its whine pitched higher, just beyond the logs at his back. He wondered idly about what silence sounded like in England.

He let Alice soak in it for a moment, nevertheless. "Better?"

"Yes…I am. Thank you." She spread her arms, her palms running lightly over the wall at her back. "I had always imagined the Americas different."

Uncas knew the Yengeese considered it right to give each other constant indications that they weren't annoyed with their companion in conversation, even if they were. It wasn't his nature to talk much to others, but he offered Alice a nod.

She seemed to take the hint. "I'd thought…I knew there was danger here. But I thought myself more equal to it. Or perhaps it more equal to me…I thought it might be...fun." She lowered her head, and the sound that came from her could have been a short laugh, or a quickly suffocated sob.

"The frontier is harsh."

"I know that. Now, at least, I do." Another pause. "I'm not like Cora. I wouldn't know the first thing to do with a gun, don't know how to suture. I know a little of nursing, of giving comfort…but Cora...she could lead a charge."

"Your sister is brave."

"That she is." There was defeat in Alice's tone, a slump to her shoulders. "I had all these thoughts of adventure. Chases and running horses and befriending red- befriending the people here."

He'd been called a heathen to his face, along with far worse things, very often over the course of his life. If anything, Alice correcting herself for his sake was slightly endearing – there had been a trader in Castleton, before the British had chosen to restrict themselves to dealing in wampum and brandy, who always called Uncas' attention by muttering  _you, the redskin_.

"Maybe…I thought being here would turn me into someone like Cora. Someone to be called in a crisis, who always knows what to do…"

 _And now you've seen too much_. Uncas found he couldn't pity Alice Munro. His brother might, with how he dealt with the inherent death and danger of their lives by hardening himself to them. But Uncas, who dealt with his emotions like he crossed rivers, walking into the center of them where the current threatened to knock him off his feet, found he understood. It was not an easy method, but it helped to remember to keep the things he valued over his head, away from the rushing water.

Uncas rolled a hundred words around in his tongue, wondering what, if anything, he should say. "You can still choose. To be braver."  _It's what I do._

He'd thought of the Camerons very, very often in the scant three days since their murders. Images of Alexandra pouring them another helping of venison stew would give way abruptly to the sightless eyes of her corpse on the grass, lying in a way that clearly told Uncas she had been shot from behind. Of James, who'd never stood still an instant in his presence, with his tiny hand limp beneath the rubble.

There were enough distractions in the world lately to keep the ghosts far from his waking mind, but to go about his life as if John and his family had never been in it felt both disgraceful and impossible for Uncas. Instead, he let the ghosts walk with him, slipping into his memory every now and again, mourning them - but always stopping short of letting the gray wisps of grief make his hands unstable on his musket. It could be difficult, particularly with how close to his heart the Camerons had been, but it could be done.

The girl on the wall across from him seemed to weigh his words, then sighed. "I'm trying."

Not  _I've tried_. Present. Still truggling.

He wondered what ghosts haunted her, what things she might see or hear in the darkness of Colonel Munro's quarters that led her to run from them. He wondered at how a girl thin and pale as a ray of moonlight, unused to toil and hardship, still fought to keep herself whole – or if she had broken already, and what Uncas saw now was a soul in strife, building itself up from the smoldering ruins of what had been.

Uncas suspected the latter. For an instant, he felt a kinship to Alice Munro, both of them youngest sons of war-hardened warriors. Younger brothers of two blazing bonfires. Hearts that fought to keep close what made them human.

And something soft, like the touch of a dove's wings, that Uncas seemed to have no name for yet.

The silence between them felt charged, full of words and half-voiced thoughts. Uncas thought about what might happen if he reached out and caught one, like a fish out of a river, but a soft clattering of small feet in small, awkward boots broke the quiet before he could.

"Well, I believe I've consumed enough of your time with my childish fears." Her tone was full of forced lightness; Uncas wondered if it was English politeness, another attempt at courage, or just an understandably human desire to distract him from what Alice probably believed to be a display of weakness. Half of her figure was enveloped in shadows as she took a step towards him. "Would you kindly escort me back?"

"Yes, Miss. It's late." He detached from the wall, remembering Nathaniel's absence then. Even if the cannons held their silence tonight, as they had so far, Uncas doubted he would manage real sleep. His anxiety had vanished at some point, while he was preoccupied, but now his mind was very, very full.

Alice wrapped her hands around his elbow, warmer now than they'd been before. They were stepping through a shaft of light, the candle that produced it nearly vanishing into a pool of wax, when a moth's wing of a word reached his ears. "Alice." His silence must have been telling, because the girl on his arm took a deep breath and spoke again slowly. "Please. Call me Alice."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomatoes were considered poisonous in Colonial America. They were sometimes grown - but for decoration.


	5. Persephone's Lament

**Great Falls - Day of the Fort William Henry Massacre**

* * *

Alice separated a strand of hair from where it stuck annoyingly to her cheek. She pulled it into two sections; the golden strands were stiff from sweat, which curiously only made her task easier. She wove one strand into the other slowly, watching her fingers twist and twine with more focus than she ever remembered having. There was a splotch of pink on her knuckles, perhaps a sprinkling of sunburn.

She didn't want to think of the things she would inevitably be flooded by once she was done braiding. They were right there, breathing down her very neck with anticipation, and Alice started to hum a lullaby to better drown out the sensation of menace. She didn't remember the words or even the entire tune, making it up when her memories failed her. It helped, somewhat.

As she tied off the tip of her braid reluctantly, Alice gave its weave a mournful caress, hummed the last few bars of the badly remembered song, and waited.

The images came swiftly.

She saw one of her father's lieutenants take two steps before his body gave up and he fell, face unrecognizable from blood. She saw a half-naked man – a man of the tribe they called Hurons, she knew now – hacking at a settler whose blond hair reminded her of Captain Winthrop, his axe sinking easily into every part the man left undefended to his attacker. The hacking went on and on, even after the man lay on the ground, after it was clear he wouldn't get up again.

The shattering horror she'd felt then had given way to calm despair that seemed to numb everything else, from her physical exhaustion to the hundred other things she should be pondering. Safely in its grip, Alice wondered at how unremarkable they all were, her and her sister and her father, Duncan and Nathaniel and Chingachgook, the French and the Mohawk and every other human that clung to life, nearly-spent candles sputtering their last just above a pool of wax.

There had been women in their caravan, Alice recalled. Women and children, fortunate to have survived the final French bombardment – who were now probably lying amidst the tall grass, their blood drying beneath the implacable noon sun.

Whenever that same sun reached its zenith in England, their cousin Eugenie would probably be rising from a full lunch with a cadre of elegantly dressed friends, discussing whether to occupy themselves at whist or perhaps a coach ride until supper.

How many times had that been her? How many brutal, anonymous deaths had gone on while she drew or visited or sipped tea, or listened to Eugenie prattle on about someone's silk brocade?

And it  _would_  go on, even if they all died here. London would keep shuffling merrily forward, because the civilized world paid no mind to what went on beyond its borders.

She must have made a sound, or perhaps shifted, because something at her back moved and Alice remembered Uncas.

 _Oh, Uncas_. Grief sent a tremor through her body, and she felt the man who surrounded her press his cheek to the top of her head.

He had pulled her from a physical edge only today, but he had been doing exactly that since the moment their paths crossed. Alice felt an annoyed kind of endearment at that.  _Fool of a boy, throwing himself into danger once and again over an invalid schoolgirl_. Did he not see it was useless, that he could die if he kept defying whatever merciless fates had decided she and her entire family were to meet their ends on this continent?

Was he meaningless, too?

A crack formed in her shell of impassiveness. No. Uncas  _could not_  be meaningless.

Not Uncas, whose hands, which dealt death with swiftness, could also treat a broken little Scottish girl like she was someone, even in this cruel wilderness where she might as well have been a particularly inconvenient piece of luggage. Not Uncas, who saw the corpses of people he had known, perhaps even loved, dispersed though a smoldering glade like forgotten toys, and had the humanity to bow his head, overcome.

Nathaniel Poe and his father had done nothing wrong by not breaking at the sight. Alice did not resent them their fortitude – it had been reassuring more than once over the hellish days. But Uncas' honesty with his feelings was even more reassuring: it was proof that someone, somewhere, could stop in his tracks to see death for the tragic spectacle that it was.

With a clarity that surprised her, Alice realized she did not want him to die.

It was a ridiculous thought. She had never in her life actively desired someone's death - not even the death of the man with soulless eyes who had killed their father…

Her thoughts halted abruptly.  _Papa_.

The others would not tell her even if they'd managed to witness it, but it didn't matter, because Alice had  _seen_. Seen his felled horse, seen the man called Magua, circled by some savage version of a Praetorian Guard, raising a bloodied fist above horse and rider. Her father's leg had not moved from its place, still awkwardly hung on the stirrup, and Alice had known.

She breathed harshly once, confused between overwhelming sadness and a sensation of hot pressure again the inside of her head. The former made her want to cry, while the latter made her want to scream, or laugh. Or occupy her hands with yet another futile task before another wave of sounds and images reiterated their merciless parade through her mind.

Uncas moved. His arms, which had fallen away from her at some point, enveloped her again, one hand sifting through her hair soothingly.

At the touch, the numbness gave way entirely, and Alice was seized with a mad, heartrending despair at the knowledge that the man who'd saved her life, wasted effort though it seemed against the overwhelming odds, could somehow come to harm.

She pawed at his chest then, knowing he would think it a mindless gesture, part of whatever disturbed state of mind he believed her in; he wouldn't suspect she was looking for the place where she'd feel his heartbeat. She flattened her palm over the green calico of his shirt when she did, feeling it beat slow and steady compared to her own.

Half of Alice felt relieved at the gentle thumping beneath her fingers, but half of her despaired. Even if they somehow lived through the night and begun the trek cross country to Fort Edward, who was to say Magua would find not them anyway? The French? Some other force of destruction?

Alice withdrew her hands, slumping against him in defeat. The half turned position she'd remained in since Uncas had snatched her from the rim of the narrow passage meant her forehead would lay against his neck if she leaned just so – when she did, feeling his pulse beat against it, Alice was seized by the urge to cry from a mix of relief and deep, upheaving sorrow.

Even if everything turned out well, she would at some point lose track of Uncas and his family. They would be delivered into the hands of the British Army and withdraw. Nathaniel…

With a start, Alice remembered: Nathaniel was wanted for sedition! He was a criminal in the eyes of the British Empire, and Duncan, dear Duncan, who grew more into a vociferous, cruel stranger by the hour, seemed ready and eager to pull the rope over his neck personally. They'd have to march their group to Fort Edward, perhaps even fight Duncan before all was said and done, then escape into the wilderness as fast as their feet would carry them.

And that would be that.

With how unlikely her survival felt right then, any thought of returning to England felt unreal to Alice – blatantly optimistic and ridiculous as a fairy tale. The idea of seeing the last of Uncas, or the thoughts that the slope of his high cheekbones, his solid brown eyes, the way he moved with a strange, savage grace would someday grow blurry in her memories, were far less abstract concepts. And that pained her.

"Uncas." Even she did not hear her own voice over the roar of the waterfall; her silent companion didn't either. The waterfall…she'd forgotten it, or grown used to its reverberations. Or gotten too lost in the shadows of her mind to remember, like what had happened when she'd briefly forgotten Uncas' presence and Nathaniel's current legal standing.

His comforting fingers, still running over her scalp, caught on the base of her braid. They fingered its weave for a moment with apparent curiosity, then slowly ran down the length of it. As Uncas' copper fingers came into view, Alice reached out, covering them with her own hand. When he tried to remove them, Alice only held on harder, uncaring of the way her grip caused them both to pull on her hair.

A multitude of things she wanted to say bubbled up her chest and into her mouth, and she thought giddily of their exit from Fort William Henry, an ocean of people sorting into some form of order to fit through its miniscule gate.

 _Stay alive_ , she wanted to tell him.  _Stop protecting me. We both know I'm condemned_. She wanted to explain the feeling, like crushed glass against her heart, at the idea of never seeing him again, at how her mind spun in helpless circles around the inevitability of it, by the death of either of them, of both, or ironically, by way of escaping death.  _Every road leads away from you_.

_Stay human, Uncas._

But she would have had to shout them, to be heard over the din of the rushing water in front of them. Alice didn't think there was enough strength in her body, or enough courage, to holler such delicate words out into the air like she was proclaiming the price of apples at the market.

Dimly, she realized that what she was doing now, huddled in the arms of a man without a hint of shame, was profoundly improper. Alice didn't care. Perhaps it was her mind – perhaps she had gone mad – or simple logic, that things like impropriety, or what knife to use at the table when served beef, or whether hoops were in fashion that season, were irrelevant when there was a man who's entire face promised murder lurking somewhere beyond the wall of water, and the only person who wanted to shield her was also the one person who shared her desperate need to look at each new corpse with kindness, even when it cost a sliver of their hearts every time.

She clutched at Uncas' fingers instead, willing the words to travel up her arm and imprint themselves on his skin through sheer pressure.

* * *

Alice woke with a start. To wake meant that she'd fallen asleep, but she couldn't remember anything. She would have thought it to be a brief doze, that she had only just let go of Uncas' fingers, but something in the light had changed. Hours could have passed, but Alice had long since lost track of all forms of time. She knew night from day, but she couldn't have told July from January, or a week's time from a month's time.

"Your sister is looking for you." Unca's deep voice rumbled against her side and close to her ear. With some effort, Alice managed to hear Cora's raised voice, but the distance and the rumble of the falls made picking out individual words impossible.

Uncas rose without warning, hands at her forearms, and set her on her feet. Perhaps wary of another suicide attempt, he nudged her to one side, facing the passage that led deeper into the cave and not the waterfall.

He needn't have bothered. Alice's feelings were marginally more collected now. She wasn't at peace, much less happy, but her mind had settled into an expectant silence, appropriate for the wait ahead of them: for dawn, and another desperate attempt at running towards safety, or for the moment they were discovered. She would not be drawn by the deadly beauty of the water like a child bewitched now.

Her legs felt clumsy as she began to plod her way towards Cora.

"Alice!"

It was the first time he'd ever said the word. Alice turned around in shock, trying not to linger on the particular texture of hearing her own name spoken by his deep voice.

Had he been his brother, this would have been the moment when a half outrageous, half endearing phrase revealed the precise pitch of their relationship to her – friends, protégé and defender, vague acquaintances…or something else. But Uncas was who he was, and Alice would not have him any other way.

Through the encroaching gloom, Alice tried to read his face. It was stern, almost solemn, but there was a softness in his eyes that clutched her heart tightly. There were many things in Uncas' eyes at that moment, but half of them were too bright and confusing for Alice to put together with confidence. There was but one she could make out, and yet it was the one she least expected.

_Do not die._

Tears gathered in the corners of Alice's eyes, and her lips tightened involuntarily. Terrified that she'd misunderstood, that he would not understand, she managed to nod at him once, resolutely, then wrenched herself from the sight of him, picking a path through the rock and blue-black shadows that quickly went hazy. Alice dashed at the rebellious tears with her fingertips.

_You too, Uncas. Live._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to clarify that Alice doesn't actively wish Magua dead at this point simply because all that matters to her is that he go away, with no real concern as to the how. It's not kindness, pacifism, or Christian forgiveness - it's the practicality of a depressed, tired young girl in the face of a real life boogeyman.


	6. Orpheus and Eurydice

Later that night, Uncas would discover a gap in his memory, right after they hauled their father out of the river. He'd recall the three of them huddled close on the rock, remembering how to breathe, and then jump to the moment when he bent his knees, examining the dark-haired body that lay in a heap on the uneven stone floor of the Great Fall's cave.

The corpse, neatly tomahawked and efficiently scalped, belonged to the British militiaman they had rescued on their way to commandeer the Huron's canoes, which led them to two conclusions: Alice, Cora and the Major were still alive, and would likely be kept alive until they were in Huron country.

Nathaniel, who'd crouched beside the corpse alongside him, surged to his feet abruptly. The tense line of his back told Uncas that the realization brought him no peace. "We need to press on."

His father didn't move to stop Nathaniel, but his stance radiated authority. "The Huron will move more slowly. They have wounded prisoners. They will have to walk slower, and make camp longer." Chingachgook stepped closer to his oldest son. "We will start tracking at first light." There was a rare trace of apology in the older man's tone.

Uncas knew their father was right. It would be impossible to find a trail in the dark, the idea of making torches unthinkable unless they wanted to announce themselves to anyone and everyone for miles in every direction. They also needed to leave a measure of cautious distance between themselves and their quarry - if they did their job too well and came up on the heels of the Huron war party, they ran the risk of being discovered and killed.

And yet, for the first time in his life, Uncas wished they would be reckless. Wished they would shoulder their belongings and run across the pitch black forest until dawn, if only to combat the overwhelming sense of yet again failing someone he had made every effort to protect.

Nathaniel looked ready to bolt for a moment longer. Then he sank to his haunches and lowered his head. "I will not sleep, even if we stop."

It was as much of a concession as his brother was capable of making.

* * *

They buried the British soldier a short walk away from the mouth of the waterfall's cavern, where the ground was soft enough to shift with their hands. Uncas lay the largest rock he managed to lift near the head of the mound by way of a marker. They would never know the man's name or his reasons, but Uncas was inclined to think well of him, staying with Heyward and the Munro sisters to the last as he had, when he might have tried to brave his way to Fort Edward and save his own scalp.

The manual labor did nothing to calm Nathaniel. If anything, it seemed to fill him with restless energy, and Uncas was reminded of the charged silence that usually fell right before a rainstorm unleashed its fury.

Almost as soon as he was done forming the thought, a cross between a howl and a scream broke the silence: Uncas' hand instinctively reached for his tomahawk and their father bolted out of whatever shadow he'd been idling under.

Nathaniel, the source of the noise, stood still under a shaft of moonlight. Coming up at his side, Uncas saw his eyes were firmly closed and his mouth was twisted in a grimace; his fisted hands, streaked with earth almost to the wrist, were pressed firmly against his sides. He knew Nathaniel was trying to get a hand on his emotions, but the expression reminded him so vividly of the face he'd made as a boy when he tried not to cry that Uncas couldn't help putting a hand to his shoulder.

The touch only seemed to infuriate Nathaniel, who shrugged his hand off brusquely.

"My son." Their father's tone was half reprimanding, half soothing.

Nathaniel cursed.

Chingachgook didn't relent in the face of his anger. "I understand, my son."

Nathaniel turned back at that, raising his head like a snake curling in offense. The irony was not lost on Uncas: a son of Chingachgook,  _le gros serpent_ , rearing to strike like his father's namesake. "NO!" Whatever angry words had been ready to fly seemed to trip over themselves on his tongue all of a sudden, and Nathaniel clenched his teeth. "You do not understand."

Even though his brother's voice cracked with pain, something in his words immediately made Uncas' temper curdle. "What do we not understand, my brother?"

Nathaniel turned to him as if he'd forgotten Uncas was there – or rather, like he was surprised Uncas had spoken, and in a tone that was clearly laden with anger no less. Nathaniel wet his split lips, his eyes less unfocused. "The Huron are carrying my heart. I am less alive the further away they go."

"We have known that you love Cora Munro for a long time, my brother. And we also know loss."

"But you do not understand-!"

" _I_  understand!"

Nathaniel stared, astounded into silence. Their father stared. And Uncas, belatedly realizing what he had said, closed his eyes and stared at himself.

His words seem to fall around the three of them like snow, cooling Nathaniel's anger along with his. When Uncas opened his eyes again, his brother had turned to him: his face was slack with something that bordered on pity. Uncas briefly wished the argument had gone on.

"I will take first watch." Nobody answered as Uncas turned away, but nobody moved to stop him either.

They had agreed that the cave was no longer safe, thanks to the fresh trail that the Huron had left leading to it. Uncas jogged higher up the riverside before stepping into the thicker darkness of the forest; tomahawk in hand, he chose the shadow of a sycamore as his vantage point and crouched, trying to concentrate on practical worries, like their lack of gunpowder, or the half-healed gash below his ribs.

A gash that had last been tended to by hesitant hands in a dark infirmary, small, uncallused fingers brushing his skin as they tied a knot in the bandages twice for safety.

Uncas winced slightly from a pain that had little to do with any wound.

* * *

Nathaniel came to him a few hours later, too early for the second watch.

Uncas could almost hear the muted pad of his brother's feet behind him – a precaution, because both of them could be effortlessly soundless when they needed to. A few more hushed steps later, Nathaniel sank down a little way off to his side, just within the deeper shadow cast by the sycamore.

"Na-ta-can."  _Younger brother_.

Uncas said nothing, but Nathaniel knew better than to think silence on his part meant ignoring.

They sat like that for a while, amidst the twitter of insects and the distant roar of the waterfall, until Uncas could almost pretend it was a summer night like any of the other ones they'd had for years, that they would wake early the next morning to trap and run through the familiar woods of New York, always heading to the west on light feet.

But that would mean there would be no Alice in his world, and the thought made Uncas breathless.

There was a faint prickling on the side of his face, and Uncas knew Nathaniel was looking at him. "Na-ta-can." He seemed to cast about for the right words. "Since when?"

"I don't know."

He'd thought nothing of her at the beginning. The girl in the white cap that had raced after her mare had been a vaguely amusing stranger. He'd lamented whatever cruel fortune had made her cross paths with a war party, because Uncas was a human being who didn't wish ill on his fellow human beings, and thought escorting her a harmless inconvenience to their plans of making their way west. A brief detour, he'd thought, one they might have told their Delaware cousins about, once the dead of winter was upon the camp and they had exhausted more interesting stories.

And now he was here, thoughts of Alice Munro like a coil of rope around his heart, yanking and chafing at it with emotions he had no words for.

"You surprise me. I thought I was the rebellious son."

The unexpected bit of humor made Uncas smile into the darkness. "You  _are_  the rebellious son."

And it was true, Uncas realized, his amusement bleeding out of him. Whatever he felt for Alice Munro was a personal problem that would never come to disturb anyone's existence. If their rescue went perfectly and everyone escaped with their lives, Uncas had no doubt that Alice would return to England. Be eager to go most likely, after the endless string of tragedies that had marked her coming to America.

She would thank him in the wordless, sincere manner of hers and go back across the water, remembering Uncas and his family only as minor parts of the bloody, luckless summer in the Americas that had shattered her to pieces.

"Cora will be staying." Nathaniel's words had the calm conviction of absolute truth.

"Has she said so?"

"No. But she will stay."

It was the first he'd heard of this, and yet Uncas felt as if he'd known it always. Cora seemed much like his brother in how she reached out fearlessly to seize the things she wanted from life, and anyone who'd spared a glance at them together over the past few days could tell that she wanted Nathaniel. Since his brother clearly wanted her as well, their coming together seemed as inevitable as the change of the seasons.

Nathaniel shifted, probably turning to look at him again. "Alice might stay with her."

Uncas sighed. "She will not."

"She might if you ask her."

Uncas laughed humorlessly. While Alice had surprised him time and again with how little mind she paid to the fact that he was considered a savage amongst her people, he could almost see her blush and badly disguised horror were he ever to even imply something about his feelings. She wouldn't be unkind, but she'd be deeply troubled, as if he'd dumped a raw, gutted fish into her lap.

"If she lives to see me again, it would be nothing but cruel to suggest that she accept the feelings of a stranger, much less put her life upside down for him."

 _If_. His implication seemed to drive Nathaniel into morose silence. Uncas had no doubt at all that they would find the Munro sisters – whether they would be able to retrieve them was not as likely. And whether they'd be alive or not for said retrieval was another matter entirely.

Uncas battled a surge of fierce, sorrow-tinged impatience, and wondered why the new day seemed to be taking so long.

 _Is this love? Is this brutal emotion that hurts and relieves me by turns love?_ If it was, Uncas thought he could finally understand why everyone, from the Lenape and the Mohawk to the French and the British, believed it had the power to drive otherwise ordinary men insane.

He would not say anything to Alice, couldn't say anything. He would not dump the weight of his affections on an already troubled mind, not when he was almost sure he was little more than an occasionally helpful shadow to her.

Uncas briefly imagined a world in which he told her, and Alice did not reject him – he nearly scoffed aloud in frustration. If she were to tell him she loved him, Uncas would first and foremost wonder if she understood what she was saying. Even the wildest animal was kind to the hand that protected it, and it was easy to mistake need and gratitude for affection. There were plenty of unions and marriages amongst the people of the frontier based on them, or its more practical cousin, the fear of being alone.

And if Alice Munro ever found it in her to love him, freely and sincerely, Uncas would remember a little brown mourning dove trapped in a Moravian missionary school. The bird, once it calmed down, wouldn't have starved or thirsted to death: Reverend David would have left it crumbs or ground corn, would have filled the tiny schoolhouse with cups of water and mounds of grass for the bird to sleep in. The children of the settlers and of the tribes would have ignored it at worst, befriended it at best.

But it would have been robbed of the sky and the tall, pale hickories, of soaring through treetops and nesting with its kin.

No…even if the world had turned upside down and the girl with the forest-shadow green eyes loved him, Uncas refused be the chain that shackled Alice Munro any further to the place of her sorrows.

But he would turn the frontier inside out looking for her. Turn the  _Huron_  inside out ensuring she could make it back to her home across the sea, worse for wear but alive.

_Even if I die on the way._


End file.
